


In Tenebris

by draculard



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: AKA Danny and Pippa who both feature heavily in this but are still quite dead, Alec Hardy Needs A Hug, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Sexual Abuse, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:33:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21568438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/draculard/pseuds/draculard
Summary: "You resemble him, you know," Miller says, examining the Polaroid. Her voice is soft now, almost inaudible. Her eyes flicker to him. "Danny Latimer, I mean."Hardy swallows, his throat dry, and looks away.
Relationships: Alec Hardy/Ellie Miller
Comments: 10
Kudos: 215





	In Tenebris

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the poem of the same name by Hardy's namesake, Thomas Hardy :D

“So that’s why you’re afraid of water,” says Miller, with that flat, feigned indifference she’s so bloody good at. The words pop out of Hardy’s mouth before he can stop them.

“Yeah, well, that’s one reason.”

He knows she’s staring at him, of course. And he knows very well he’s fucked up, so he absolutely does not look up to meet her eyes. He stares down at the photo of Pippa, turning it over in his hands, not really seeing it. 

He has no idea how many minutes pass like that: absolute silence, Miller eyeing him with that wary, guarded brand of concern she wears, Hardy pretending he’s found some new detail in this ragged photo which requires immediate and scrupulous attention. 

Christ, but he’s stupid. Give Miller a juicy bone like that and she’ll never let it go. There’s nothing to do but move forward with it. Damage control. 

“I, er, I was never very good at swimming,” Hardy says.

Right. Crisis averted. Because that’s definitely good enough to put Ellie Miller, rabid detective, off his case. He folds the picture of Pippa and replaces it in his wallet — nothing to see here — and rolls his shoulders, sucks in a breath. All the gestures of a man whose business is done and who’s ready to leave.

Miller gives him a dry look.

But she doesn’t ask anymore questions, and she follows him out the door — and that’s all Hardy could ask for.

* * *

He can hear the waves lapping against the cliff-side from his new little house, the water far too close for comfort. “Save Our Coastlines” — he remembers seeing that headline today, in passing, on a newspaper someone was reading at court. He thinks if he left his house tonight, he could sit and watch dark water slam against the chalky cliffs, eroding them one wave at a time.

But he doesn’t leave his house. He closes his eyes and he sees a dark-haired boy lying on that beach, clothes wet, grains of sand stuck to his nose and cheeks.

He sees the bloated corpse of an eleven-year-old girl floating in a loch, surrounded by reeds.

He sees Danny Latimer plunging over the cliff-side.

He opens his eyes.

He shakes the visions away and makes himself a cup of tea.

* * *

“You’ve been here before?” Miller says to him, and he lies. It’s easy enough; he knows Miller, he knows what she values, how much she cares for her children. The idea of a less-than-amicable divorce offends her; the concept of fighting in front of a child is anathema to her — not because she’s never wanted to, Hardy knows, but precisely because she _has_ been tempted to so many times she couldn’t possibly count them, and she’s never let that temptation win. 

It’s a bleak enough story to satisfy her. He knows, even as he tells it, that she’s eyeing him and thinking, _Yes, that certainly explains it._ She can imagine that Hardy’s mum and dad were bitter, angry people. She can imagine that he might go down to the beach to get away from the row. She can imagine that it might explain his prickly nature, and she can feel just enough sympathy to accept the story without pitying him, without becoming uncomfortable.

He feels sand in his hair.

He feels it beneath his fingernails, feels it on his tongue.

“Ach, well … some boys would kill for a childhood like that,” he says, and Miller’s eyes flash up the beach to the police tape which cordons off the little piece of sand where Danny Latimer’s body was discovered, and he knows she understands what he means.

* * *

She’s so triumphant the day she finds that daft fucking Polaroid stuck on the wall of a chippy. 

“I must have seen it a hundred times,” she says, “and never even noticed it. There’s hundreds of them, you know. All faded now, from the sun. Mr. Allan who runs it, he used to take photos of families with young children who came by, and he pasted them right there beneath the menu.”

She offers him the photo. She’d snatched it from Mr. Allan’s chippy without asking, and Hardy scowls down at it, at the dark-haired boy with knobby knees and his parents — a thin, wan woman with Hardy’s build, a tall and grimacing man with Hardy’s eyes.

“Aye,” says Hardy grimly, “that’s us.”

He shoves it back at her and lets go before it’s even in her hand. He feels as though it’s burnt him.

He doesn’t remember anyone taking his photo that summer.

_But you do,_ says a voice in his head, and his stomach twists at the thought. _Just not this one._

Miller bends to peel the old photograph off the floor and brushes dust off it as she straightens up again. She doesn’t notice the expression on his face. Or perhaps she does, and she’s so used to his sour expressions that it doesn’t seem worth mentioning.

“You’re not keeping it?” she asks.

There’s a fetid taste in Hardy’s mouth, like stagnant, dirty water. He takes a gulp of too-hot tea and shakes his head.

“Well, I will, then,” she says with a cheeky smile. “I see you were just as gloomy as a boy as you are now, though I suppose you come by it honestly enough.”

He doesn’t in any way, shape, or form signal a desire for clarification, but Miller gives it to him anyway, tapping the photograph in her hand.

“Your dad isn’t smiling, either,” she explains.

He stares at his hand, curled around the handle of his mug. For a moment, he thinks he can feel the itch of dried sand on his skin. He takes another sip.

“You resemble him, you know,” says Miller, examining the Polaroid. Her voice is soft now, almost inaudible. Her eyes flicker to him. “Danny Latimer, I mean.”

Hardy swallows, his throat dry, and looks away.

* * *

He hears “Not guilty,” in the courthouse and it seems like some invisible force turns his head so that he finds himself looking at Miller, so all he can see is the frozen expression on her face. He doesn't hear the commotion. He doesn't notice the people standing or all the yelling, or the tears from the Latimer family. It seems like that look on Miller's face is the only thing in the room worth looking at it, and it lasts an eternity, when it should have never existed at all.

It all happens too quickly after that. It all becomes one giant, anonymous fog, one dark and churning sea. Broadchurch and Sandbrook; Joe Miller, Claire Ripley and Ricky Gillespie, John Hardy; Danny, Pippa, Alec. 

By the time it’s all over, he finds himself standing on the edge of the beach alone, and the sun is down and the waves are lapping over his leather shoes. His ears ache from the cold; his arms are wrapped around his middle. He can’t remember walking down here, not really, but he feels the ache in his calves and feet and knows he must have been walking for a long time.

He doesn’t startle when he feels Miller brush against his shoulder as she steps up beside him. Part of him always knew she was here.

“You’re shivering,” she says, and her voice is hoarse from crying. Hardy doesn’t answer her. “The tide will be coming in soon,” she says next. “Come back from the water.”

He follows her numbly. She guides him with her hand on his sleeve, touching him. Not quite touching him. At the base of the cliff, she sits down, not on the sand but on an ancient log turned smooth by the sea. When he sits next to her, Hardy can almost feel the water going over his head, burning its way up his nostrils and down his esophagus. Choking him even though he can _see,_ he _knows_ it's too far away, knows it can't touch him.

And as always, it’s Miller who distracts him.

“I half-think I need to apologize,” she says, “on behalf of Broadchurch. For how …”

She waves her hand, gestures silently, and Hardy thinks he knows what she means. He thinks: _Pippa, Danny, Alec._

Still, Miller tries again. “How every time you come here …” This time she breaks herself off with a shrug, a half-smile, a quick glance his way. “Everything just goes wrong.”

He says nothing. He stares at her red-rimmed eyes, the tear-stains on her cheeks, and feels almost envious of her. His own face feels like a porcelain mask. Ill-fitting. Too heavy for his head.

“I mean, first Danny,” says Miller. “Now this. And when you were a kid, your parents …”

His shoulder twitches. Close as she is to him, Miller feels it, stops talking. She stares out at the ocean and Hardy imagines that when he runs his tongue over his gums he can taste salt there and feel grains of sand grinding between his teeth. He imagines he can smell bluebells and rotten flesh; he imagines he can feel wet clothing clinging to his skin.

And then it bubbles up and he understands for the first time that when he tastes the ocean and feels his lungs burning, the water choking him is coming from inside.

He turns to Miller — Ellie — and sees that her eyes are glistening, and thinks maybe he’s seeing her for the very first time.

_She knows Joe,_ he thinks. _She knows him better than anyone else. She slept beside him; she loved him._

She knows.

Hardy clears his throat. “My dad—” he says, but something goes wrong in the middle of the sentence. His voice falters against his will. The words he meant to say just disappear. “My _dad,_ ” he tries again, and it comes out flat, as though that’s it. As though that’s all he ever meant to say.

He clears his throat again, feels like he’s strangling. Ellie’s hand finds his, her fingers small but coarse, and he’s staring resolutely out at the water when she squeezes.

He doesn’t finish the sentence.

They watch the clouds roll in to cover the stars, and after some time — after his heart stops racing from adrenaline and the color of shame drains from his face, leaving him chilled and weary — he squeezes back.


End file.
